


Exceptional

by MadiYasha



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)
Genre: F/M, Retelling, holy matrimony but they kiss. thats it. thats the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2019-01-27 06:50:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12576100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadiYasha/pseuds/MadiYasha
Summary: Throughout the years, Jessie had accepted some things: the sky was blue, the grass was green, flareon was the only acceptable evolution for an eevee, and everyone she cared about was going to leave her.





	Exceptional

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this when i was 18 and just getting back into the fandom/rocketshipping, finding my legs. found it on accident and was like wow this is better than half the shit i write nowadays! so here it is.
> 
> hope this tides y'all over while i take for fucking ever on the new DTE chapter.

Steadily trudging down a dirt road were two figures soaked in the orange of the fading sunset. The path below them was long worn with the many footsteps of trainers long passed, and they paid no mind to the dust clouds below them as they carried onward. It was a common scene in their day to day life; feeling failures, they dealt with their downtime as they made their way to whatever location the winds of fate let them drift to next. Jessie and Meowth’s thoughts synchronized only on rare occasions, it was a miracle that they were both thinking almost the exact same thing now.

_ Let’s be thankful our send off was not the usual electric shock and a several-mile-long journey through the air,  _ t hey sighed.  _ At least this time we landed in a particularly comfy bush. _

The sun dipped into the edge of the horizon and Jessie shivered.  She made a half-hearted attempt to fold her arms.

“Guess all dat money ‘n’ luxury was just too temptin’ for James t’ give up.”

She gritted her teeth before responding to her furry partner’s ponderings.  “I guess you’re right.”

Jessie’s history was a long, wretched existence that consisted of her watching people’s backs as they disappeared from her vision, and she’d always been defiant of the black feeling that pooled in her stomach when it inevitably happened.  Throughout the years, she’d accepted some things: the sky was blue, the grass was green, flareon was the only acceptable evolution for an eevee, and everyone she cared about was going to leave her.

Every time it happened she saw their faces flash through her head.  All the boys she’d loved when she was younger, all the partners who couldn’t keep up with her back when she was an apprentice.  She stopped before she saw her mom.  There were some things you didn’t bear to remember for your own sake.  Jessie grew up and toughed it out and acknowledged it as part of life, because to Jessie people came and went like seasons.  No sense in feeling bad about it.

(Not for too long, anyways...)

So why,  _ heavens why _ , did she feel so sick and cold to her very core?  Her and James had history--more than anyone else--but was that really enough to tear away at the girl so much?  There was logic in her feelings somewhere, but Jessie wasn’t the person fit to find it.  When that kind of stuff was involved, her best instinct was to get frustrated and smash it with whatever blunt object she could find lying around hammerspace.

Lost in thought, she noticed the sunset was still around in full force.  It hit her then that it hadn’t even been a minute since she’d responded to Meowth.  Time was passing slower, and it was  _ agonizing _ .

Time passing slower meant more time hurting and less time  _ moving the fuck on with your life, girl. _

She almost didn’t register the shadow looming in front of them or the voice commanding it like a battleship on high, flaming seas.  She wasn’t snapped out of her cruel reverie until she felt paws batting at her leg and the shrill sound of the pokemon at her feet shouting  _ “Hey, it’s him!” _

There was a moment when things clicked into place and she registered his cry to her, repeating those words that lined the back of her mouth like instinct, she knew them better than she knew how to breathe.  Her entire form froze and Jessie felt her heart lurch forward.   _ People leave, _ she repeated to herself,  _ people don’t come back.  Name one person who has, name one person who dared to stay with the likes of you… _

If there was ever a moment in Jessie’s life where she put up no fronts, hid nothing of how she was feeling, and remained 100% true to herself, it was stuffed into that single word and how it fell from her scarlet smile.

“ _ James! _ ”

She stood her ground and a mantra repeated in her head that she was not used to by any means:  _ let go. _  All the anxiety bottled up and all the abandonment she’d accepted as life, as fact, as normal as the colour of the sky, it crawled out of its ugly nest in her ribcage and she felt the weight vanish.

“...make it double!” 

She felt it fly away into the great burning yonder like a flock of proud pidgeotto.

Jessie left a trail of dust behind as she leapt into the sunset, her hands locking with his, the feeling of both of them flying through fire as the world melted into watercolour around them.  When she caught her breath her heart was still hammering, and she averted her eyes from his, instead looking down at her feet and wondering how much of a smile would be too much.  She sucked in a breath.   _ Present, Jessie.  You have a reputation to uphold. _

“Guess we’re not going to get rich this time, either.”

“Guess not,” he responded, lightheartedly, and had his eyes always been  _ so green _ ? “They wouldn’t give me the inheritance.”

“There’s always next time.  We may not make a lot of money…”  _ Fuck, those were tears welling up in the back of her throat.  Not now, Jess.  Not now. _ “...but we sure have got our freedom.”

“Yeah! Double trouble time, right?”

His outstretched hand, she realized, was the closest thing to a home she had in this world.

“...Sounds great to me, James.”

She said his name again, just to make sure she still knew how.  He was here.  He was here and everything was going to be okay.

Jessie’s gaze moved from their linked hands up to his eyes, those incredible eyes that she’d always just seen as a hazel marsh that were now suddenly shining with the depth of a thousand lush forests, even though the sun was setting through their treetops.  How his flawless lavender locks framed his flawless face and how that was nothing new--the two of them had agreed shortly after meeting in their adult years that they were both incredibly perfect.  Perfect dressers, perfect personalities, perfect people.  Aesthetically speaking, Jessie had always admired James and known with confidence that he felt the same for her.

But her heart was fluttering and her knees were weak when they got lost in each other’s eyes, and she wondered just then if that was a thing that happened when you were staring your best friend down.  She decided it wasn’t, and that she felt like listening to the buzzing impulses as they rattled anxiously around her swelling heart.

So she hopped forward and threw her arms around James’ neck and crushed their lips together, knotting her  _ perfectly _ manicured nails in his  _ perfectly  _ soft hair and wondering why she didn’t understand sooner that they were perfect  _ together. _

He squealed a tiny noise of surprise initially but quickly melted into it and Jessie could feel him smiling against her lips.  It dissolved into a moment of softness and she raised her leg off the ground when he hugged his arms around the small of her back.  These were the fairytales she’d read about and dreamt of as a young child, this was how it was supposed to be.

They broke apart, noses pressed against each other’s cheeks, and James was the first to speak.

“Do you--ah, um--I suppose--” he swallowed, willing coherence to his throat. "Sunsets, huh?"

She tilted her head.  “Sunsets, James?”

He grinned, closing his eyes and bringing his gaze to the vanishing ball of light.  “They’ve always been pivotal in our friendship, don’t you think?  That first time we met, it was at sunset.  When we ran away.  When… ah, when we parted ways, and…”  

She brought her hand down to his shoulder and peered into him as he spoke.

“...when they assigned us to the same team.  Fitting, this would be at sunset, too.”

“And what is ‘this’ exactly?”

He picked his words carefully so as not to offend.  “Well, you started it, Jess.  What do you want ‘this’ to be?”

The redhead crossed her arms.  “A declaration of ownership.”

James sighed playfully.  “Mind yourself, dearest. You _did_ just cross paths with the last woman who wished that of me.”

“Allow me my sense of humour, James,” his name felt so wonderful to her after thinking it was gone forever.  “I could have far worse coping mechanisms, you know. ”

"I suppose you're right. Well, in that case..." she watched him close his eyes, smile, and nod.  “I’m yours.”

 

The night sky came alive, and they drifted to tomorrow, content with the world until the words were said…

_ “...do you feel like we might be forgetting something?” _


End file.
